Immigration Reform Bill Only 2 Steps Away From Becoming Law

October 15, 1986|By KNT News Service

WASHINGTON — A committee of House and Senate members agreed Tuesday on a landmark immigration bill that gives amnesty to millions of immigrants, mostly Mexicans, who have resided illegally in the United States since 1982.

The bill, which has been approved by the Senate three times and the House once but never in a form both could accept, also calls for jail terms of up to six months and fines of $10,000 for employers who repeatedly and knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

The conference ended Tuesday after eight major differences in the House and Senate versions were resolved through compromise.

''This is a damn good bill,'' said Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., one of the original authors of the bill and chairman of the conference committee. ''But there are still two more hurdles remaining: It needs to clear both houses of Congress, and the president needs to sign it.''

After working on the bill for six years (his staff says he has spent ''a zillion hours'' working on it), Simpson's caution was understood by House members who worked with him on the conference committee.

''We still have some missionary work to do in the Senate and with the White House,'' said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif.

Republicans such as Lungren agreed to accept provisions they don't care for because they desperately want an immigration bill.

The House members sacrificed a provision that would have allowed employer sanctions to expire after five years because Simpson said he would ''walk away'' if it were included. But the Senate conferees then agreed to accept an amendment from Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., that creates a special consulate at the Justice Department to investigate whether criminal penalties cause employers to discriminate against foreign-born Americans.

Likewise, Senate conferees accepted the House date of 1982 for ''legalization.'' The Senate had proposed 1981. Senate conferees also accepted a House proposal that grants civil rights and eventual citizenship to 350,000 agricultural guest-workers who worked in the United States for 90 days last year.

The conferees haggled briefly over reimbursement provisions. The Senate favored a $3 billion maximum federal payment over six years to states affected by legalization, and the House bill called for 100 percent reimbursement. The conferees settled on $1 billion per year for the next four years, the amount personally pledged by President Reagan to Simpson and Rep. Peter Rodino, D- N.J.